Alice Boyle

Dang! Is there no legal basis for shutting these hateful groups down?

oh that's fantastic, Silas! Looking forward to seeing your paper!

With my move to Canada, the grassland focus is shifting a bit, but I will be building on these insights for future work in more Northern prairies. Follow along at www.aliceboyle.net
11/11

This is a big deal--though theory predicts that abiotic variability should drive pop declines, few empirical studies have documented this response. Anyone who has lived in the great plains has an intuitive sense of this variability, esp rain. It matters for persistence of very special birds!
10/n

HOWEVER, play out GRSP numbers under that climatic variability, and sparrows not expected to persist at that site beyond ~100 yr or so due to climate ALONE. Not good at all.
9/n

THEN we forecast pop growth under predicted climates. In KS, temps are warming and although overall summer rain is decreasing, rain is getting more variable--more severe storms & floods. Under forecast climate, lambda fluctuates around 1... which is good, right?
8/n

So what are the net effects of rain? No single dominant pathway emerged but lagged breeding season rain was related to net negative growth. Lagged responses almost certainly implicate vegetation structure (see esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....)
7/n

We combined data in a Baysian integrated population model with informative priors and estimated the contribution of each demographic rate to pop growth. Juv & adult male apparent survival (incl emigration-dispersal key here!) shapes pop dynamics
6/n

Male GRSP with caterpillar larva in mouth (about to feed nestlings); unique combo of color-bands on legs allows individual recognition. Photo (c) Dave Rintoul

Grasshopper Sparrow nest hidden in dense, dead grasses. Host and cowbird eggs visible within

The analysis was founded on >10 yr May-Aug data: LOTS of HARD work. Each yr, teams of 5-7 students captured, marked, & resighted color-banded adults, found & monitored nests/young, & did many complementary studies. 2100 banded adults, 912 young, 1113 nests!
5/n

Grasshopper Sparrow Overview, All About Birds, Cornell Lab of Ornithology The stubby-tailed and bull-necked Grasshopper Sparrow is easy to overlook throughout its range. When not singing its quiet, insectlike song from atop a stalk in a weedy pasture, it disappears into the...

Our protagonist... the Grasshopper Sparrow. A once abundant grassland-obligate songbird that breeds in a suitable habitat across much of the USA, S Canada, and patchily S in Mexico, central America, & Carib. Now declining fast due to hab loss & degradation.
www.allaboutbirds.org/guide/Grassh...
4/n

schematic of the scales (local, regional, continental) and ways by which rain might plausibly influence the abundance of a grassland songbird

Big-picture what did we want to find out? How climatic variability influenced demography over multiple scales. Many pieces of this diagram embodied in individ studies, but this paper brings it all together... what are the net effects of rain, and through which demographic rates?
3/n

Katy Silber (L) in prairie habitat holding a Grasshopper Sparrow; Koley Freeman, (R) in forested environment holding a Canada Jay. Both smiling!

First, want to recognize the amazing efforts of co-lead authors Koley Freeman & Katy Silber (former PD & PhD in my lab). Katy lead last couple yrs data collection and sensitivity analyses, Koley built the main IPM under guidance of collaborator Trevor Hefley. Culmination of #NSF-DEB 1754491!
2/n

Climatic Variability Threatens Population Growth and Persistence of a Declining Grassland Songbird Determining the factors responsible for population change in threatened populations and the degree to which changing climates might put those populations at risk is one of the most pressing roles of ...

New OA paper today! This one is very important to me as is the culmination of over a decade of incredibly intensive field work in KS prairies. I will walk you through the take-homes...
1/n
#Tallgrass #GRSP #LTER #Konza #PopulationEcology #Rain
dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3...

This is beautiful. I also love the obsessive rigour of the approach.

But also true

nice! congrats! what do you think "habitat" standing in for here?

omg omg omg we're going to Guyana over the winter break!! SOOO excited for the birds we will see!

First snow day of the season on campus meets last leaf day.

And so it begins…

(Bonus sandhill crane at the beginning!)

Oh!!! I don’t know! What an incredible project that would be

Link not working

How did I not know that birds Canada chose a grassland species as its ambassador for the year?

A tiny proportion of the river of Blackbirds at Long Point last evening. Sound on for the magical sound of thousands of fluttering wings at the end.
#LPBO

Cute face of a N Saw Whet Owl in the hand

Recently grown owl feathers flouresce a shade of pink under UV light

I had a most excellent evening! At long point for the Canadian Migration Monitoring Network meeting and we caught some Saw Whets! #LPBO

Truck displaying sign saying “parents as tearchers”

Now that I am not living in KS I feel better about posting this evidence of the dire straits of the US educational system

Thank you! solution #1 seems most tractable for me. Much appreciated!

When making a video using a green screen, how do you get rid of the green halo created by wisps of hair? Or does everyone else have perfectly sleek heads?

I 💓today's google doodle!!
www.google.com/webhp?hl=en&...
🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋🦋

Sigh… the leaves have been SO spectacular lately (see below!) but today, they clearly had passed the peak… on the downward slide to winter